


hands

by v3ilfire



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, it's an origin story yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6498010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v3ilfire/pseuds/v3ilfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first twelve years of her life, Gwyneth Hawke assumed that she was not a mage. The burden of apostasy fell onto her father and sister, and that was enough for one family to handle. </p><p>She was also, rather unfortunately, wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hands

By the age of twelve, Gwyneth Hawke’s hands were already calloused from farm work and browned with mud and sun (a little more so than other children her age thanks to a dash of Antiva on her father’s side), but she liked them well enough. Her pa had promised he’d teach her how to hunt once he was done with Bethany’s lessons, and so she sat on the dock just outside their modest fields, carving out some sticks for arrows with a blade she’d knicked off of Gilly’s boy. She was content enough to wait by herself, but the pattering of bare feet on wood announced the arrival of her younger brother.  
“Gwyneth. _Gwyn!_ ”  

“Not now, Carv, I’m busy,” she called back, but Carver had already run to his sister’s side, hands braced on his knees as he caught his breath. Gwyn groaned as she turned to face him, not having expected the blood trickling down his chin from his lip. “Oh, mam’ll have your head this time. What did you do?”  
“Would you shut up and help me clean it up before she sees me?”

Carver sat unflinching while Gwyn blotted at his lip with a damp rag. She’d managed to nab some of her father’s whiskey, too; she’d overheard some of the older boys say it helped stop the cut going rotten.  
“Y’never told me what you did.”  
“‘Cause it’s none of your business.” Gwyn rolled her eyes. She’d found a clean part of the rag and stared at the bottle of whiskey, unsure of exactly how much she was supposed to dump onto the cloth. She picked it up and tried her best to be gentle, but the liquid got away from her and half of it ended up all over the rag and her hand, as well as the hay scattered beneath her feet. “Smells bad,” Carver said, wrinkling his nose. Without warning, Gwyn pressed the rag to his face and he yowled in pain, to no sympathy from his older sister.  
“ _Shush,_ or else mam’ll hear ya.”  
“We’re not even near the house.”  
“That’s my point.”

Carver’s lip was still both obviously split and swollen, but they’d managed to stop the bleeding well enough. Despite her brother’s petulant pouting, Gwyneth was still in high enough spirits about the prospect of learning how to hunt. They’d almost made it back to the house before the answer to Gwyn’s questioning presented himself before the siblings with his arms crossed over his chest. Eli was five and a half feet of freckles and misdirected anger, and ever since he’d hit his fifteenth year, was also the most annoying wretch the Hawkes had ever laid eyes on.  
“Ran crying to your sister, did you?”  
“Sod off, Eli.” Not about to take part in her brother’s impending shouting match, Gwyn tried to take a step forward, but Eli just mirrored her.  
“Let us go,” she insisted, already beyond annoyed. Not about to be held up by this poor excuse for sack of horseshit, she tried to push past, but her scrawny twelve-year-old frame was no match for his frankly overfed one. On her rear she heard Carver yell something that would get Andraste’s panties in a right twist, and by the time she found her bearings again, her little brother had joined her in the grass with blood near gushing out his nose.

Carver let his sister help him to his knees, too busy holding his (definitely broken) nose to continue shouting obscenities. Eli laughed, much to Gwyn’s further irritation. They’d been picked on for as long as they lived in Crestwood, and Carver never did himself any favors in that respect, but the other kids had never gotten violent before.  
“Had enough?”  
“Sod off,” Gwyn said again. “What are you, bored?”  
“My pa said your daddy’s an _apostate_.”  
“He is not!” She shot back. Carver had already tensed in her arms. “And even if he was, that’s got nothing to do with us.”  
“Says he’s a _blood mage_. How do I know you’re not demons?”  
“You’re the only demon here,” Carver grumbled, almost nasally enough to be funny if the situation wasn’t such a right bother. Eli scowled in his direction, clenching his fists.  
“Maybe I should finish you off right now, demon. Nobody in the village would blame me. Nobody _likes_ you.”

“I hope your dog eats you,” Carver shouted, and before Gwyn could scold him, the older boy was running full speed at them, fists raised. Carver made an attempt to get up, but his sister threw him to the ground and stood instead, ready to be a living barricade.

Later, she would recall the moment as a cool rush through her whole body, and then a fire. Something surged, and there was a _light_ , but nothing quite made sense until she saw Eli sprawled on his back, still sparking weakly where her hands left burn marks on his chest and gasping for air.

Bethany was the one who sat with Gwyn that night, as their family scrambled to pack only what they needed. They could hear echoes of the townspeople shouting in the square, even with their farm in the outskirts. She could also hear Carver with their mother, in the other room, his voice small.  
“Will I be magic too, mum? I don’t want to be magic.”  
“I… I don’t know, Carver.”

“It’ll be okay, Sister,” Beth whispered. Gwyneth only stared at her hands in the same dead-eyed horror she’d worn since following bloodied Carver through the threshold. Her pa had promised to teach her how to hunt, but now he had to teach her magic. Now she was an apostate, too, and the demons would wake her in the middle of the night like they woke Beth, and Carver would cringe at her lighting candles without a match, and the villagers wanted to kill her, and the Templars would want to catch her, and --

“Breathe, Gwyn.”  
Malcolm crouched in front of his daughter, soft eyes set in a stern face. Gwyneth took a deep shuddering breath, tears spilling over her lashes. Her father sighed, and pulled both of his daughters into his arms. Gwyn felt his hands on her back, warm and sure and pulsing with the same energy she felt just earlier that day.  Suddenly, she hated them as much as she hated her own.


End file.
